


Red Strings

by Setsuna24



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:24:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3740701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setsuna24/pseuds/Setsuna24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young woman who regrets her life choices, a young orphan living with two college seniors and a homicide detective. Their lives collide in a tale of loneliness, suffering, murder, and hopefully love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Marie

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by fifteenfeb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marie's life after marriage is not the fairy tale she imagined.

Call them Gods or call them Fate, it doesn't really matter, but it is said that they tie a red string connecting those who are destined to meet. Some say the string is tied around their ankles and others say around their little finger, the string is invisible to the naked eye so no one really knows. Be it because they are destined to love each other or to provide help in a times of great need, those connected by the red string of fate will meet and destiny will run its course. The cord will stretch and tangle but it will never break, there is no way to prevent a fated meeting, all you can do is to continue life as it was meant to.

******RS1******

**Marie**

They met when she was in college. She was a naïve little freshman hoping to take on the world and do great things for which she would be remembered by all those whose lives she touched. He had been so charming as he asked for directions to the science department for a meeting with the head of the department.

She had smiled at him and he had looked at her with those lovely dark eyes and smiled back. She was lost, lost to the world and to reality, as she skipped her history class to lead him to the professor's office. She thought she would never see the charming older man again after he was done with his meeting so she wanted to be able to spend as much time as she could with him.

He asked about the college and laughed at her sarcastic words against the math majors. She had never had this much fun talking to a random stranger before and immediately decided she liked older men; they were much more interesting to talk to than the guys her age who were still stuck in high school mentality.

At the end of the day, she was ready to leave the college and head to her small apartment. The last thing she expected was for him to be leaning against his luxurious car at the entrance, waiting for her.

They went for coffee at one of the trendy establishments near the college and talked for hours. She was smitten. He asked her to meet again and she agreed giving him her phone number. Two days later, they were having coffee again followed by a movie. They began to see each other more often and before she even knew what was going on, they were dating and in less than a month, he had proposed. She had said yes with a grin on her face.

Her mother had not been happy. She was only eighteen; brand new to the ways of the world, and a three month romance was not enough of a base for marriage. She was so thrilled that Mark had told her he loved her and wanted to share the rest of his life with her that she could not care about what her mother had to say about it. He was thirty-eight and not getting any younger, so why waste time dating when they could begin a life together? Less than four months later, she was walking down the aisle inher all white and laced expender with a wide smile upon her face.

She dropped out of college the minute she began to go by Mrs. Hastins, it was only natural, after all a wife has to be able to dedicate her time to her husband and home. At least that is what he said. The way he had explained it to her had made so much sense that she did not give it a second thought. So happy she was at the possibility of making him happy and being there whenever he needed her that she concentrated her whole being on being the best wife she could be.

Things began to change after she left college and somehow, she felt that a wall was slowly being built between her and the rest of the world. One day he moved her across the country, alienated her from friends and family and forbade her to go back to school. He became controlling, jealous and domineering. The wonderful charming man she had met had completely disappeared and she did not know now if he had truly ever existed.

She was trapped in the place she was now forced to call home with a man she had believed truly loved her.

How mistaken she had been to fall into his silk woven web. It had been a trap from the very beginning and she had fallen head over heels into it. Had he really had a meeting the day they met or was it all just a lie by a wolf in sheepskin to trap some willing little lamb. How she had fallen on that snaring web of softly spoken lies and dug herself deeper into a hole she knew not how to crawl up from.

For close to a year and a half, she had lived a hell she would not wish upon anyone. She was scared and alone in this agonizing reality. The consequences of her naiveté just kept piling up and she wished she had heeded her mother's advice. Now she had dragged someone else into this mess, an innocent, someone who would have even less of a chance to defend himself than she had. It had been nine hours and forty-five minutes since she found out she was carrying Marks child.

******RS1******

Her wandering mind was jerked back into the present by the sound of a glass vase breaking against the wall to the right of her head. It had been just two inches too far to hit her square on her face, she was glad the vase had hit the wall and not her head.

"Move, you stupid woman! I don't have all night to wait for your dumb mind to catch up to my words and do what I tell you to."

Marie practically ran to the kitchen and fetched his meal. Then she walked to the chair across from his on the large table and sat down to wait, in case he needed something else while he ate and read financial reports. Completely ignoring her presence. With her gaze lowered she heard the heavy silence of their house being broken by the noises made by his silverware on the expensive China plate. Twice she looked up, trying to recognize on his face even a single trace of the smiling man she met that Wednesday afternoon in the college hallways. Instead all she did was catch glimpses of her broken face on the glass of the wedding picture framed and hung behind him. She had lost weight, had lost hair, had lost the light in her eyes and the smile that used to adorn her face. She had lost so much and gained so little during her time with him. Bruises now painted her face and neck of dark blues and greens and sickly yellows and purples. She was decorated in an array of colors depicting her suffering and agonized existence. Marie found she was hideous and wondered what happened to that pretty young girl with hopes of taking on the world and leaving a mark on history? What happened to Marie Sanders before she became Marie Hastins? Where did she go? Was she still there, buried under all those bruises, hiding in a corner deep in the mind of the person she was now?

She wondered what her life would be like right now if only she had said no to that first coffee on that Wednesday afternoon. If only she had taken things slow and gotten to truly know who Mark was before she jumped into marriage with the devil himself. But now was not the time to think about "what ifs" and "maybe ifs", she needed to do all she could to keep herself from harm and her child alive. He would do all she could to help her baby survive the next eight months of his development and before he was born into this world, she needed to find a way to get away from Mark.


	2. Oh Brother, The Father!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marie's husband rentretains company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by fifteenfeb

**Oh Brother, The Father!**

Marie lay upon the large wooden desk, her arms over her head and her hands secured to the handle of the top drawer with very tight handcuffs. They were cutting into her skin and she could feel the slight wetness of blood circling her small wrists as she tried not to move her arms and make the lacerations worse. It was hard to keep still when her arms were starting to ache significantly. Her legs were bent and spread open, her feet at the edge of the desk, he had forbidden her to move from that position and she was too afraid to go against his orders even though her muscles were starting to hurt from holding that position for close to an hour.

The scratching of his pen as he signed important papers was the only sound in the small home office. He was not paying any attention to her and was completely uncaring of her distress and discomfort. She watched him as his brows furrowed and his eyes examined something in the paperwork, he would not look her way and she felt sad and thankful at the same time.

There was a ball gag in her mouth keeping it uncomfortably wide and any sound from leaving it. Marie knew what was coming, there was only one reason he would even allow her in his office and give the maid the rest of the afternoon off. There was one reason for him to have her spread in such a lewd way when he hardly touched her since they moved away from her family. His brother was coming over. It really didn't even bother her anymore that it continued to happen. What bothered her was that she was now so broken that she did not fight it anymore. The realization that her body was just a toy for him to play with whenever he felt like it was what nagged at her conscience. It did not matter though; there was nothing she could do about it.

There was the sound of a door opening and closing followed by the sound of hurried steps coming in the direction of the office.

Then the door opened and she tried to mentally prepare for what would happen next. The door closed and the steps came closer to her. She looked up and looked into the eyes of an older version of Mark. He smirked at her lewdly, taking in her naked and exposed body over the desk as he took off his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves.

Brian tore his gaze from her body and addressed his brother.

"Today's meeting was hell but I secured the contract and we have permission to begin our project. I must say I'm glad that it's finally settled, it was really starting to stress me out."

"Good thing I got just the right thing to help you take a literal load off and get rid of some of that stress."

A thing, that's how her so-called husband saw her.

Brian chuckled; they talked about her in front of her like she was not even there. Like she was a witless animal with no say as to what happened to her body. She guessed it was true though, she had no control over what they did to her.

The sound of a zipper being lowered made her look up again, Brian was standing between her legs looking at his brother. Her gaze turned to Mark and saw that his eyes were locked onto those who were so much like his own, he had pushed his important paperwork to enjoy the scene of his brother taking his pleasure from her body. For the hundredth time, she wondered why they didn't just fuck each other and leave her out of it. It was clear that other than their shared desire to torment her, they held no want for her.

Her eyes closed as she tried to drive her mind away from what was about to happen. It was difficult to disconnect from her body and pretend she was somewhere else when there was someone forcefully burying his hard shaft into her dry core, there was no way she would get excited enough by this situation to make the act anywhere near comfortable or at least, less painful.

She had no idea how long he took her savagely and with no regard to her likely bleeding flesh. Marie tightened her eyes and forced herself not to whimper in pain and not to think that they were very likely still looking at each other as he groaned over her. His body trembled with his release and he let out a low groan as he pushed himself as far as he could, shooting his load far into her. The sound of the chair being pushed back from the table and steps walking around the desk made her open her eyes and look at Mark. He was standing to her right, watching his brother's still buried cock inside the woman he was married to. Brian's body was still pressed against her as he caught his breath and the sweat from his forehead fell onto her breasts.

As soon as his brother pulled out, Mark had his hardness out of his pants and pushed himself into her with as much forcefulness as Brian had done, at least now she was lubricated by the other's release. It was the only way he would willingly fuck her, when Brian's cum was still hot inside her. Honestly, if only they would just do each other, her life would be much less miserable than it was now.

Brian chuckled as he whispered something into Mark's ears. Everyone in the room knew Mark would not fuck Marie unless Brian had fucked her first and the older brother seemed to be teasing him about it. It only made Mark look at her with piercing hateful eyes.

That insufferable chuckle filled the room again when Brian licked Marks ear and the younger brother came inside her instantly. Brian seemed to find amusement in these sorts of situations. They were both so very fucked up.

What made the reality of her life so dreadfully sad was not the fact that both brothers were using her body; some women would even find such a thing to be hot. No, it was the fact that for a very long time she had not enjoyed the act of sex and was not even sure she could even feel sexual pleasure any more, not since they decided she no longer needed a clitoris ten months ago and had paid a surgeon close friend of theirs to remove it. She could not even find pleasure on her own now and was terrified of looking at her privates in the mirror as if not looking at her butchered self would make it less real.

Her life was so wretched. She was so miserable and feared for the future of the little life growing inside of her. In her mind she kept thinking she was carrying Mark's child, the reality was that she really did not know whose child it truly was, for all she knew and in all likelihood, it was probably Brian's. But somehow convincing herself that the child was her husband's seemed to make it better in her mind, less disgusting. Made her feel less of a whore and like she was not just a toy for their pleasure.

Mark pulled out of her and she could feel the warm fluid sliding out of her and hear it fall in blobs on the floor. Her wrists were bleeding profusely now, the force of their thrusts had rocked her body violently over the desk forcing her arms to pull at the cuffs and the metal to dig into her skin and open the lacerations even more. This was her life now, blood and semen and pain, so much pain.

Her husband looked at her with disgust as he pulled up his pants and fixed his shirt. He had seen the puddles of blood and cum on his pristine hardwood floor and had decided it was somehow her fault. She whimpered in fear of him knowing what was about to happen but her panic was short-lived as his fist flew fast through the air and connected with her face.

Everything started going dark and before her consciousness left her, she sighed in relief that at least for a few hours she would feel nothing. She would have peace.


	3. A Boy, A Girl, And A Closet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy's world comes crashing down around him and he loses all he held dear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by fifteenfeb

**A Boy, A Girl, And A Closet**

They had been screaming at each other for two hours now. The boy and his sister listened from their shared bedroom where they had been hiding inside their closets as close to each other as they could. The last thing they wanted was to be hit by some randomly flying object during one of their parent's violent fights.

The fights were getting more and more common as of late and it was really starting to scare then. The girl was afraid they were going to kill each other one day and she wanted to protect herself and her brother from their crazed mother. Jealousy was really getting to her head and starting to eat at it and make her violent and delusional.

A loud crash sounded through the house and the boy felt that whatever had been thrown had made the whole place shake but perhaps it was just his imagination. His father's voice was loud and angry but it could not be drowned by the venomous screams of his mother. They were getting louder with each passing minute and it surprised the boy that the neighbors had not called the police yet. Then again, it would be the seventh time this month so maybe the cops were just tired of answering domestic disturbance call.

"Fuck! I can't do this shit anymore! This time I'm leaving you and it is final."

"Its because of that bitch whore of yours isn't it?! I gave you the best years of my life, had two kids for you and lost one in between. I gave you my youth and my everything and now that I have nothing else for you to take you feel like you 'need a change in your life', that 'it's no longer working between us' that 'our love has died and our life become monotonous'. Well bull fucking shit! You are not leaving me! I will kill you before you do, you selfish prick."

"You know what? This is exactly why I can no longer deal with this shit. I can't stand this attitude of yours. Andrea, you are being irrational and you know it. You know I can't continue like this, I'm leaving."

Angry heavy steps moved from the living room to the master bedroom, the sound of the wooden door being slammed shut made the boy feel that the walls were shaking again.

Another wrathful shout from the mother's voice indicated that she was still in the living room though her opening and shutting drawers indicated that she was moving about looking for something. Whatever it was she was looking for it seemed like she had finally found it because her running steps lead her straight to the master bedroom where the gild assumed her father was packing his clothes so he could finally leave to be with his not so secret girlfriend, or whatever that woman was to him.

The door slammed open in the master bedroom and from their huddled positions inside the closet the boy and the girl heard their parents screaming at each other. Then it suddenly got deathly quiet, they hugged each other even closer.

"What the hell Andrea, put that thing away. Where did you even get it? This is not funny and it is dangerous to go waving that thing around like it is a toy." Their father said, his tone of voice was pleading and scared. Fear tainted every one of his words even as he tried to seem rational.

"I told you, didn't I? I warned you but you would not listen. You brought this upon yourself Frank. This is entirely your fault."

"For the last time, put that thing away you stupid bitch!" In retrospect, that was probably not the smartest thing their father had ever said.

For a moment the house was eerily silent. It was as if all sound had been suddenly sucked out of the atmosphere leaving the drumming of their hearts and the rush of the blood in their veins sounding incredibly loud in their ears. Then the thunderous boom of a gun being fired shattered the illusion as if it had never existed. It seemed their mother had not been making a scene when she said she would kill Frank rather than letting him go.

The girl gasped and covered her mouth quickly before any noise that could direct their crazed mother's attention to their hiding place had any chance of escaping her mouth. The boy was frozen in shock wondering how in the hell their deranged mother had gotten a hold of a gun.

"Now you can't leave me." Came the voice from the master bedroom door. "You will never leave me, none of you ever will."

That was what got the girl and the boy to realize that even in the sanctuary of their closet, they were not safe.

She was coming for them now and they needed to get out of the closet and run away before she got to their door. The girl knew there was not enough time for both of them to climb out of the window, but if she could just hold the door shut she could buy enough time for the boy to get out. She jumped out of the closet and pushed a chair against the door, tipping it and securing it under the door handle.

"Hand me the sheets!" she ordered pointing at the bed and the thirteen year old boy hesitated a moment before leaving his safe haven. "Now! Before she gets in!" His sister insisted as the sound of their mother trying to open the door and hitting her body against it registered in his mind.

He scrambled to his feet and handed her the sheets that were tangled on top of the bed, not knowing how they would help save their lives. His sister used her own body to try to keep the door closed when the force of their mother's attempt to break the door open had started to make the chair give. Her trembling fingers tied the sheets together at the ends making them into a long rope the boy could use to get down from the second floor where their room was.

"Here, tie it to the bed's headboard, quick. Make sure it won't come off."

The boy ran to the bed and did as he had been told, pulling hard at the sheets several times to make sure they were secured and would not come off and then looked at her, silently asking what else he had to do. The girl left her position leaning against the door and took his hand and the end of the sheet rope and led him to the window opening it wide and pushing the screen out of it.

She helped him climb to the window and instructed him on what to do; he was hanging on the outside of the house looking into the bedroom when the door finally busted open. His mother came in holding a gun in her hand and his sister looked at him with sad scared eyes.

"Bye Jo, I love you." She said seconds before she slammed the window shut, startling him and making him fall onto the bushes beneath him.

He heard her cry "mom, please no, please don't kill me mom" but her cries were quickly stopped by the sound of the gun being fired. He would never forget the sound of the gun and how it seemed to rattle every bone in his body. The bushes had cushioned his fall and other than a few bruises and scrapes he was well. His sister had given up her life so he could escape but he still feared for his life, and in his fear made him make what to his childish mind seemed the most logical of choices. He ran away, until his legs could no longer run and until his bare feet were bleeding from the pieces of glass and small pebbles on the road as he ran in mind consuming panic. He ran until his legs no longer could support him, until he was exhausted. He hid inside a draining pipe by a creek at the edge of town and then passed out, not knowing his mother had killed herself when she had not found him.

Jordan Tracy had lost everything in less than thee hours.


	4. Boy In The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jordan is weakened and losing hope of surviving, the thing is, at this point he doesnt really want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by fifteenfeb

**Boy In The Dark**

At some point during the cold autumn night, the wind picked up and brought with it strange and frightening noises. He kept looking back and forth from his huddled position inside the large cement pipe. The shadows cast upon the world by the silver light of the moon, were somehow both eerily captivating and maddeningly ominous.

 

As branches and trees swayed outside his temporary shelter, the sounds drove his young mind to imagine horrible creatures with long bony fingers reaching out to catch him. Every loud sound in the distance turned into a gun being fired and a young girl asking for mercy. Briefly, he thought he might be going insane as he held his legs tight to his chest and made his body even smaller inside the dark pipe.

 

He was cold, frightened, sad, and hungry, but above all he was tired. Every single movement outside was sufficient to make him whimper in fear and keep him from getting any sleep. Small animals scurried by as larger animals called each other in the distance, and occasionally a car would drive by. From time to time, a rat would run over his bare feet and scare him with their small cold feet with sharp little nails, their long naked tail and dirtied fur bellies passed over his hands or feet. His bare feet were no longer bleeding but still held all matters of pebbles and pieces of glass embedded into the soft skin.Sometimes he could feel a curious rat like the dried blood, but he was too tired to move and shake it away.

 

Thunder broke the sounds of the world for an instant and lightning momentarily illuminated the inside of the cement pipe. It was beginning to rain, thankfully this particular pipe didn’t get much drainage into it and he could remain in it without being drowned by the water, not that he was in any condition to move anyways. Not after the shock caught up to him and froze him in place like an empty doll. Still the water covered his lower body from the waist down as he remained sitted in the same position for hours. He was so cold now, much colder than he had been, before half his body was covered in water, but somehow his mind seemed in a way disconnected with his body. The sensations it was experiencing seemed like an echo to his mind as it was not fully registering them.

 

The sound of the heavy rain drowned all other sounds from outside the pipe, the flashes of lightning made the shadows of the leafless trees even more menacing-looking but in his detached state of mind, the boy could not perceive any of it. His mind had been so overwhelmed with pain and confusion that it had just shut down in order to cope with the loss of everything that made up the boy’s life.

 

Eventually, the rain passed and so did the darkness outside as it was replaced by the light of day. The cycle from light to dark repeated several times but the boy’s empty eyes did not register them or their meaning. His body was growing weaker by the day and he could no longer sustain it at a sitting position, he lay now on the cold cement of the pipe’s floor unable to move. If it rained again, the boy would drown. Time passed unrecognized, it had been twelve days. The boy was starved and dehydrated, his eyes could no longer open and his feet, legs and arms held scratches and bites. Despite breath not having left his body yet, the rats had begun to make a meal out of his prone body, he would not last long. He had a fever, his mind provided delirious dreams behind his closed eyes all caused by the effects the infected wounds on his body and the high fever that accompanied them. Dreams about a sister that jumped out a window with him and ran away to a place where the grass was green and the trees full of apples, dreams of being warm, of not being alone and dying inside a cold pipe.

 

On the thirtieth day, he barely registered the sound of dogs barking in the distance, or at least it seemed distant to him, since his mind could not make sense of much at this point. He thought that maybe the dog would find him and eat him and he could just be over and done with this slow death. Despite his eyes being unable to open, he was conscious behind the closed lids, he hoped for death to come quickly. As it turned out, the dogs did find him but luckily for him those dogs were followed by police officers who had come from the next county to aid the small police force of their small town in the search for the missing boy. Strong arms took him in a close embrace and lifted his weakened body out of the pipe. They carried him through a sea of relieved faces to a waiting ambulance where the paramedics promptly began to clean his wounds and hook him up to monitors and IV drips. He was going to live, he was going to make it, but the boy wasn’t sure if it was worth it at the cost of what had been sacrificed. Behind the closed eyes, the boy drifted into sweet unconsciousness where again delirious dreams filled his mind.

 

He was in and out of consciousness for two days, the police were waiting until he could stay awake longer than five minutes to question him and get his statement on the event that happened before he ran from his home. In his mind, he blamed them, because they had not come to help when they should. He blamed them because he was sure if someone had come to their home and stop his mother, he would still have a family. He would not be dreaming of branches that morphed into long bony fingers reaching for him to drag him to his demise anymore or of his sister’s death, and the words ‘Bye Jo, I love you.’ would not be haunting him right now, making him feel guilty for being alive.

 

On the third day, he was able to give his statement. The doctor said he would spend two weeks in the hospital until his body recovered and was strong enough not to be a concern. A lady from Social Services came by several times to talk to him about the foster home he was going to be living at. She also introduced him to a psychologist, whom he would be seeing once a week after moving into his new home. Through it all, he had remained disconnected and unconcerned about all the people buzzing around him and after giving his statement to the police, had not spoken a single word to any of them.

 

Two weeks passed without him noticing, Jordan was closed off inside his mind, still procession how his world had crumbled around him. By the time the outside world had finally began to come into focus, he had already been in his foster home for close to a month and he had not even noticed. His body had been on autopilot the whole time but his mind had been far away, when life was happy and death was an abstract concept.

 

 


End file.
